Worm – Bluenothing
Release Date: 28th October 2022
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Bandcamp
Genre: Doom Metal, Funeral Doom, Black Metal.
FFO: Disembowelment, Abigor, Thorns of Carrion, Limbonic Art, Ceremonium, Evoken, Emperor, Obtained Enslavement, Atramentus, Unholy, Arcturus.
Review By: Eric Wilt
I want to say that Worm is a band that needs no introduction—they did, after all, have the best-selling 20 Buck Spin album of the year for 2021—but if this is your first time hearing about them, allow me to have the honor of introducing Worm to you. Worm is a band from Florida whose 2021 album Foreverglade was one of the best releases of the year. Incorporating doom’s plodding, brooding pace, timely organ flourishes and guttural vocals that could only come from the dank depths of an unearthly swamp, Worm has taken the music that bands like My Dying Bride began and made it grimier and more sonically menacing.
The title track picks up where Foreverglade left off. In fact, Bluenothing was initially intended to close out Worm’s most recent full-length. With bludgeoning heaviness and a pace that is reminiscent of their namesake, Worm trudges through the infernal swamp from whence they came. A few minutes in, an organ makes an appearance to add the funeral to the already gloomy mood of Worm’s patented brand of doom. Clocking in at a whopping ten minutes and thirty seconds, the highlight of Bluenothing is the majestic solos that usher Worm out of the depths for a few minutes before returning them to the mire to plod to the end of the song with a dreary flourish. Another track from the Foreverglade sessions, Centuries of Ooze II, is up next and is rife with more crushing funeral doom, this time complete with dirge-like clean vocals. All in all, the A side of this mini album is exactly what fans of Worm have come to expect in all its grimy glory.
The B side of Bluenothing sees Worm jump out of the swamp and into the graveyard. Featuring more jaw-dropping shredding from new guitarist Wroth Septentrion, Invoking the Dragonmoon is a relatively short instrumental that sets the mood for Shadowside Kingdom, which is an all-out black metal attack. Beginning with three minutes of Wroth Septentrion having his way with both classical acoustic and electric guitars, the song then segues to black metal’s brisk pace, complete with blastbeats. Compared to the front side of the album, it almost sounds like a different band playing this final song, but Worm retains enough of their rotten aura to allow the track to sound more like an expansion on, rather than an abandonment of, their former sound.
Fans of Worm will appreciate having two more tracks from the killer Foreverglade sessions, while being given a taste of what is to come from the swamp-dwelling purveyors of Florida funeral doom. If this is your first time hearing about Worm, it’s time to give them a shot, and what better way to do that than with this bite-sized morsel of doom and black metal glory.
(5 / 5)
